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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1982)
Thursday, January 21, 1982 Eugene, Oregon Oregon daily Volume 83 Number 83 emerald Education bill won’t benefit too many vets By Ann Portal Ot tht Emarald A Congressional bill passed in November appeared to extend veteran's educational benefits, but the new law actually means nothing for University veterans Hilda Young, director of the veteran's affairs office at the University, said she hoped the new law would help University veterans who are nearing the 10-year deadline for using educational benefits However, the new law, which extends the 10-year deadline through Jan 31, 1983, contains some restric tions that will prevent all current or prospective Univer sity student veterans from taking advantage of the extension "It's very unclear as to who qualifies," Young said University veterans wrote to the Portland Veteran's Administration and Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Oregon, but the letters they received didn't answer any questions, she said Young called the Portland Veteran's Admin istration two weeks ago, only to learn they were unsure what the new law meant. Louis Smith, veteran's services officer at the Portland Veteran's Administration, said Wednesday that the national veteran's office recently sent his office a clarification on the new law "1 here are not going to be very many people who qualify for benefits under this delimiting date," Smith said The law's wording says that it "extends for certain Vietnam-era veterans the period in which the Gl Bill educational assistance benefits may be used for the pursuit of certain training " "Certain veterans" is spelled out later in the bill as only those who do not have a high school diploma and are in need of vocational or job training because they are unskilled "When they say unskilled, they mean they have no skills of any kind," said another Veteran's Administra tion staff member Smith said the "certain training" bill covers in cludes only apprenticeship and on-the-job training programs Vocational community college courses would be covered, but not community college courses that apply toward bachelor’s degrees Young said "quite a few” college-level veterans in the Eugene area could have used an extension of the unused portion of their educational benefits, including some veterans who enrolled at the University this term hoping the extension would continue their benefits The monthly check has run out for those students, she said r Photo by Bob Baker Sen. Bob Packwood spoke on the application of the First Amendment to print and electronic mass media. Senator advocates media rights By Ron Hunt Of &»• Emtmfd The First Amendment should apply to all forms of communication — electronic as well as print media, Sen Bob Packwood, R-Ore , advocated Wednesday. “I’m convinced that’s what our founders would have done,” Packwood told and EMU audience at a session sponsored by the University's journalism school. Packwood chairs the Senate commerce com mittee which oversees national communication policy Most mass communication will be electronic soon, Packwood said, not print in the historic sense And because the government has the power to regulate content and licensing of electronic media, he said, the First Amendment is in a precarious position. "The power to regulate communications is the power to regulate freedom,” he said. America has three options, Packwood said. It can do nothing, but the Supreme Court and Federal Com munications Commission could continue to decide against press freedom It can decide that this is 1982, not 1787, and that the First Amendment is no longer relevant because the government has the right to control the airwaves Or it can apply the First Amendment — "the bedrock of other liberties" — to electronic media "Without its provisions, no other liberties are long secure." Government power must be restricted, Pack wood said, because otherwise “it’s going to impose its convictions of what is right on the rest of us." The Alien and Sedition Act, the "Red Scare” around 1920, McCarthyism in the 1950s, Watergate, and the 1942 decision to imprison Americans of Japanese ancestry are all examples of unrestrained power, he said. Because the government often reacts in the "passion of the moment,” Packwood said, values like freedom of the press must be put down on paper where they can't be changed "If they’re not written in, the passions will come.” Packwood also criticized those with a “Cotton Mather morality” — those opposed to abortion and busing and who favor prayer in the schools. If they have their way, "next year it can be assembly or free speech” that's abandoned, he said. During the question and answer period Jerry Rust, Lane County commissioner, said government is not trying to regulate the content of cable television but is merely attempting to protect the public from the "de facto monopoly of a company” on public airwaves. “Cable is not a monopoly,” Packwood said, because so many sources of information exist in the community. Even if cable was a monopoly, that wouldn’t be a sufficient reason for government regulation. Only eight daily newspapers were publishing when the Constitution was written, but the signers were still committed to freedom of expression, he added. Financial aid hopefuls need to apply soon By Ann Portal Of Iff Emmrmfd Students wanting to be considered for financial aid for the 1982-83 school year should begin applying immediate ly March 1 is the deadline for priority consideration of financial aid applica tions and the "absolute" deadline for general University scholarship applica tions, according to Carol Richard, assistant financial aid director Richard reminds students that the the competition for financial aid this year will be tough, as it was last year "We had twice as many scholarship applications completed for 1981-82 as we had the year before," she says Although the financial aid office needs to receive the processed applications by March, the actual allocation of financial aid may take place much later than usual this year, says Ed Vignoul, financial aid director Congress still has not settled on an amount of funding for federal financial aid programs next year. A "continuing resolution" that Congress passed before its Christmas break provides financial aid funds only through March 31, allowing the level of aid to be severely altered after that date. The College Work-Study Program, Pell Grants (the new name for Basic Educational Opportunity Grants) Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and National Direct Student Loans all face possible cuts. In addi tion, Congress may place even stricter limitations on Guaranteed Student Loans "The potential impact is just incre dible," Vignoul says. His office usually begins mailing aid offers around the first of May. Even without the federal money "in hand,” the office has successfully gambled on those offers in the past, Vignoul says. Last year, the money did not arrive until July 1, which delayed the handing out of summer term aid and forced all financial aid offers to^be refigured dur ing August "But I’m not going to do that this year,” Vignoul says. “There’s too much at stake.” At least 60 percent of the students at the University receive some type of financial aid, Richard says. For the 1981-82 school year, the University dispensed about $20 million in loans and grants and approximately $180,000 in general scholarships. Dependent students and their parents as well as self-supporting independent students must submit the financial aid form to the College Scholarship Service in Berkeley, Calif The CSS provides a detailed financial analysis of the student's resources to the University's financial aid office. The analysis takes about three weeks, so applicants should mail the financial aid form to the service by Feb 1 to ensure full consideration for aid, Richard says. "Every year, the priority deadline has become more important because more students have applied early, expenses have gone up and federal monies have gone down," she said. "Beating the deadline by several weeks won ’t give you an edge on others who make it by only a week, but missing the deadline may eliminate your chances altogether because some types of aid may already be allocated for the year.” For further information, contact the (financial aid office, 260 Oregon Hall, 686-3221.
